He nodded. “My friend,” he said again. “My, er, once-was-a-bird friend. I . . .” He swallowed, wiped his tears and snot with the back of his sleeve. “I’m sorry if this sounds rude, but, ah . . .” His voice trailed off. Luna could stop him with a rock, though she quickly waved the thought away when a rock rolled near and started hovering menacingly.
No hitting, she thought at the rock with a glare. The rock fell to the ground with a dejected thud and rolled away, as though chastened.
I’m going to have to be careful, Luna thought.
“But, are you the Witch?” the man continued, his eyes pinned on Xan. “The Witch in the woods? The one who insists that we sacrifice a baby every year or she will destroy us all?”
Luna gave him a cold look. “My grandmother has never destroyed anything. She is good and kind and caring. Ask the people of the Free Cities. They know.”
“Somebody demands a sacrifice,” the man said. “It isn’t her.” He pointed to the woman with the shaved head and the paper birds roosting on her shoulders. “I know that much. I was with her when her baby was taken away.”
“As I recall,” the woman growled, “you were the one doing the taking.”
And the man hung his head.
“It was you,” Luna whispered. “I remember. You were only a boy. You smelled of sawdust. And you didn’t want . . .” She paused. Frowned. “You made the old men mad.”
“Yes,” the man gasped.
Her grandmother began to pull herself to her feet, and Luna hovered, trying to help. Xan waved her away.
“Enough, child. I can still stand on my own. I am not so old.”
But she was so old. Before Luna’s eyes, her grandmother aged. Xan had always been old—of course she had. But now . . . Now it was different. Now she seemed to desiccate by the moment. Her eyes were sunken and shadowed. Her skin was the color of dust. Luna gathered more moonlight on her fingers and encouraged her grandmother to drink.
Xan looked at the young man.
“We should move quickly. I was on my way to rescue yet another abandoned baby. I have been doing so for ever so long.” She shivered and tried to take a single, unsteady step. Luna thought she might blow over. “There’s no time for fussing, child.”
Luna looped her arm around her grandmother’s waist. Her crow fluttered onto her shoulder. She turned to the woman on the ground. Offered her hand.
“Will you come with us?” she said. Held her breath. Felt her heart pounding in her chest.
The woman on the ceiling.
The paper birds in the tower window.
She is here, she is here, she is here.
The woman on the ground lifted her gaze and found Luna’s eyes. She took Luna’s hand and rose to her feet. Luna felt her heart take wing. The paper birds began to flap, flutter, and lift into the air.
Luna heard the sound of footsteps approaching on the far side of the knoll before she saw it: a pair of glowing eyes. The muscled lope of a tiger. But not a tiger at all. A woman—tall, strong, and clearly magic. And her magic was sharp, and hard, and merciless. Like the curved edge of a blade. The woman who had demanded the boots. She was back.
“Hello, Sorrow Eater,” Xan said.
45.
In Which a Simply Enormous Dragon Makes a Simply Enormous Decision
“Glerk!”
“Hush, Fyrian!” Glerk said. “I’m listening!”
They had seen the Sorrow Eater make her way up the side of the knoll, and Glerk felt his blood go cold.
The Sorrow Eater! After all these years!
She looked exactly the same. What kind of tricks had she been up to?
“But Glerk!”
“But nothing! She doesn’t know we’re here. We shall surprise her!”
It had been so long since Glerk had last confronted an enemy. Or surprised a villain. There was a time that Glerk was very good at it. He could wield five swords at once—four hands and the prehensile tip of his tail—and was so formidable and agile and huge that his adversaries would often drop their weapons and call a truce. This was preferable for Glerk, who felt that violence, while sometimes necessary, was uncouth and uncivilized. Reason, beauty, poetry, and excellent conversation were his preferred tools for settling disputes. Glerk’s spirit, in its essence, was as serene as any bog—life-giving and life-sustaining. And, quite suddenly, he missed the Bog with an intensity that nearly knocked him to his knees.
I have been asleep. I have been lulled by my love for Xan. I am meant to be in the world—and I have not been. Not for Ages. Shame on me.
“GLERK!”
The swamp monster looked up. Fyrian was flying. He had continued to grow and was yet again larger than when Glerk had last glanced him. Astonishingly, though, even as he became larger and larger, Fyrian had somehow regained the use of his wings and was hovering overhead, peering over the rim of the trees.
“Luna is there,” he called. “And she’s with that uninteresting crow. I despise that crow. Luna loves me best.”
“You don’t despise anyone, Fyrian,” Glerk countered. “It’s not in your nature.”
“And Xan is there. Auntie Xan! She is sick!”
Glerk nodded. He had feared as much. Still, at least she was in human form. It would have been worse if she had been stuck in her transformed state, unable to say good-bye. “What else do you see, my friend?”
“A lady. Two ladies. There is the lady who moves like a tiger, and a different one. She doesn’t have any hair. And she loves Luna. I can see it from here. Why would she love Luna? We love Luna!”
“That is a good question. As you know, Luna is a bit of a mystery. As was Xan, ever so long ago.”
“And there is a man. And a lot of birds are gathered on the ground. I think they love Luna, too. They’re all staring at her. And Luna is wearing her let’s-make-trouble face.”
Glerk nodded his broad head. He closed one eye and then the other and hugged himself with his four thick arms. “Well then, Fyrian,” he said. “I suggest that we also make some trouble. I’ll take the ground if you take the air.”
“But what are we to do?”
“Fyrian, you were only a tiny dragon when it happened, but that woman there, the one who is all hunger and prowl, is the reason why your mother had to go into the volcano. She is a Sorrow Eater. She spreads misery and devours sorrow; it is the worst sort of magic. She is the reason why you were raised motherless, and why so many mothers were childless. I suggest we prevent her from making more sorrow, shall we?”
Fyrian was already in flight, screaming and streaking flames across the night sky.
“Sister Ignatia?” Antain was confused. “What are you doing here?”
“She’s found us,” whispered the woman with the paper birds. No, Luna thought, not just a woman. My mother. That woman is my mother. She could barely make sense of it. But deep inside her, she knew it was true.
Xan turned to the young man. “You wanted to find the Witch? This is your witch, my friend. You call her Sister Ignatia?” She gave the stranger a skeptical look. “How fancy. I knew her by a different name, though I called her the monster when I was a child. She has been living off the Protectorate’s sorrow for—how long has it been? Five hundred years. My goodness. That’s something for the history books, isn’t it? You must be very proud of yourself.”
The stranger surveyed the scene, a small smile pressed into her mouth. Sorrow Eater, Luna thought. A hateful term for a hateful person.
“Well, well, well,” the Sorrow Eater said. “Little, little Xan. It’s been ever so long. And the years have not been kind to you, I’m afraid. And yes, I am terribly glad to see that you are impressed with my little sorrow farm. There is so much power in sorrow. Pity that your precious Zosimos was never able to see it. Fool of a man. Dead fool now, poor fellow. As you will be soon, dear Xan. As you should have been years ago.”
The woman’s magic surrounded her like a whirlwind, but Luna could see even from a distance that it was empty at its center. She, like Xan, was depleting. With no ready source of sorrow nearby, she had nothing to restore her.
Luna unhooked her arm from her grandmother and stepped forward. Threads of magic unwound from the stranger and fluttered toward Luna and her own dense magic. The woman didn’t seem to notice.
“Now what’s all this silliness about rescuing that baby?” the stranger said.